Every little thing he does is MAGIC
Maverick magician Dynamo is back with his first TV series in six years – inspired by his battle with a chronic illness that began in childhood
The best magic makes us gasp in awe and takes us to mysterious places. But rarely has there been a show as personal or heartfelt as Dynamo: Beyond Belief, the magician’s first series in six years.
While the maverick magician, whose real name is Steven Frayne, always gives his routines a narrative, this one follows his journey to hell and back over the last three years.
The series moves between the unbelievable highs of his career – he was the first British magician to sell out arena shows – to him becoming seriously ill after his Crohn’s disease (a lifelong condition that causes inflammation in the digestive system) flared up after a bout of food poisoning. That led to crippling arthritis, and at one point he was spending most of his day in chronic pain, terrified he would never work again.
But the show also reveals how illness inspired him. During his weeks in hospital and long recuperation, he filled diaries with ideas and he describes his new Sky One three-part series as showcasing his best-ever work.
It takes the man who famously walked on the Thames and levitated next to a London bus to new heights, from driving backwards blindfolded through the busy streets of Moscow to pushing a banknote through the side of a glass tequila bottle. Other stunts include withstanding extreme heat and stopping a highpowered car with his hands in Japan.
‘It’s easy to take things for granted, like we’re walking through life with our eyes closed,’ says Dynamo, 37. ‘It seems like only yesterday that I had the world at my feet. If I’m honest, success made me believe I was invincible, but the more successful I became the less inspired I was. Then, in July 2017, reality came knocking.’
That was when he was rushed to hospital with severe food poisoning. And because part of his intestine had been removed when he was 17 due to the Crohn’s, it was to have a brutal impact. ‘The pain was so intense that even the highest doses of morphine barely touched the sides,’ he recalls. ‘But I’d have all sorts of dreams, and I dreamed my pain was a living thing that could be tamed. I’d wake up in a sweat and furiously write everything down. I left hospital with hundreds of new magic ideas in my little black book.’
Apart from a strange pain in his ankles, he felt well. ‘Over the following months things returned to normal,’ he says. ‘I was performing again and life seemed good. But over time the discomfort in my ankles started to intensify, spreading to my knees, shoulders, wrists and hands. My hands would shake – one thing you need as a magician is a steady hand.
Some mornings the pain was so bad I struggled to get out of bed.’
He was diagnosed with reactive arthritis, caused by the shock to his system of the food poisoning. His treatment included steroids that made him bloated, and the show features videos he made at home showing how ill he was. ‘My home was my prison,’ he says. ‘My body was in constant pain. I couldn’t use cards, so I practised magic with anything I could.
‘I never appreciated what I had until I lost it all, that’s the whole tragic point. We rarely take time to stop and reflect. That’s the beauty of magic. It helps us see the world in ways we’ve never seen it before.’
Magic has always been Dynamo’s salvation. His mother was 16 when he was born while his father, who left when he was four, was in and out of prison. He grew up on some of the most deprived housing estates in Bradford, England and the Crohn’s meant the young Steven was small and weak, so prone to being bullied. But his greatgrandfather Ken, a Second World War veteran who learned magic in the Navy, taught him what he knew and it transformed his life. ‘The first thing he showed me was how to take away the bullies’ strength,’ he once recalled.
‘People thought I was weird,’ he says now, ‘but slowly they wanted to see me do things. Magic gave me the power to bring people to me. It made me stand out, but in a positive way.’
The fame, he admits, was overwhelming and being sick forced him to re-evaluate life. His biggest fight was with fear and that’s encouraged him to be braver in his magic. ‘There’s power in having nothing to lose,’ he says. ‘At my lowest point I started to realise I could get sucked into the darkness or embrace it.’
He is still often in excruciating pain, but as we learn on this journey, he’s got better at controlling it. The stunningly produced new series takes him from Tokyo to Dubai and Moscow to Mexico City. They might be different people from different nations, but the reaction to him is the same – awe.
‘I’ve always believed magic is a unifying force,’ he says. ‘I set out to make a show for people who felt isolated from society like I was during my struggles with chronic illness. The resulting trilogy is my best work to date, I hope everyone enjoys watching it as much as I did making it.’
Dynamo: Beyond Belief, Thursday, Good Friday and Saturday April 11, 9pm, Sky One. The series will be on Sky and Now TV from Thursday.